Some of the most influential people in history have been African American. The following individuals were people that pioneered their fields in history, and some who are making history today.

Anna Julia Cooper was an educator from 1887 to 1941, teaching at M Street High School in Washington D.C., Lincoln University, and eventually became president of Frelinghuysen University according to Britannica.

In 1892 Cooper wrote a book titled “A Voice From the South by a Black Woman of the South”, which became a classic African American Feminist text according to Britannica.

She spent her life advocating for the education of black women, teaching math and science in historically black schools. In the 1890’s she became a popular public speaker, and got involved in the women’s club movement, the clubs goal was to educate less fortunate African Americans, according to Britannica.

Another pioneer in education was Mary McLeod Bethune, she spent her life dedicated to the movement for Black Education. She began her life picking cotton, and at age 10 became the first child in her family to go to school.

 After getting her higher education and selling insurance to provide for her son she founded a school for women of color; this all girls school later merged with another school and became Bethune-Cookman University. This school still remains a top destination for black students according to Biography.com.

Still in the 19th and 20th centuries, George Washington Carver left his family and their farm to attend school when he was 11 years old and eventually applied to Highland college in Kansas, but was deferred because he was black. He then applied, and got accepted to Iowa State University to study botany, according to History.com.

Carver was the first African American to earn a bachelors of science. An article on History.com states that he revolutionized new ideas of crop rotation that allowed the yield of farms across the country to increase dramatically by replenishing soil nutrients.

In more recent history, but still in the STEM field, in 1983 Guion Bluford became the first African American astronaut. Bluford spent 700 hours in orbit over 4 missions, with each mission he conducted experiments to gain scientific insight into solving some of humanity’s problems History.com has documented. 

Bluford was the first of now 15 African American astronauts who have been to space, with Victor Glover being the most recent, and currently in orbit aboard the International Space Station. Glover has done two space walks, and is currently a flight engineer on the ISS according to NASA.

“We hit the ground running with maintenance, science, and spacewalk prep,” Glover stated in a tweet on November 23, 2020 after spending his first few nights aboard the ISS.

Breaking away from STEM, in 1864 Rebecca Lee Crumpler “challenged the prejudice that prevented African Americans from pursuing careers in medicine to become the first African American woman in the United States to earn an M.D. degree,” according to Changing the face of Medicine.

“I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others, Crumpler said in her “Book of Medical Discourses”, “Later in life I devoted my time, when best I could, to nursing as a business.”

On the topic of medicine, former Surgeon General Jerome Adams led the nation’s coronavirus task force, and did what he could to promote mask-wearing, social distancing, and self isolation.

Finally, the most well known person on this list is probably Vice President Kamala Harris, the first female VP, and the first VP of color. Before getting elected to VP, she was the first African American district attorney in California according to CNBC.

Harris chose a chief of staff, communications director, press secretary, and head of policy who are all also women of color according to the Washington Post. This shows how she is doing her part to bring diversity into the Biden administration.

“Our diversity is our strength,” Harris tweeted in December. In that tweet was a video in which Harris said, “You may be the first to do many things, make sure you’re not the last.”

Overall, diversity is increasing, with more people of color being represented in fields and jobs all the way up to the government level. Harris, and all of the pioneers in fields before her proved to future generations that nothing is impossible.